More national security challenges to come

November 16, 2012

Almost two months have passed since the pre-meditated terrorist attack of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the brutal murder of our ambassador and three brave American fighting men, and the American people still do not have answers from the president about what he knew about this terrorist attack and when he knew it. While the mainstream media and a majority of American voters cynically chose to ignore this foreign policy disaster and coverup prior to the November election, it's a sure bet that our enemies have not ignored it. Without a doubt, our enemies will test this president's reluctance and indecisiveness to make crucial, timely decisions to use our nation's military to protect our people and our national security interests.

From what we do know about Benghazi, President Obama said he gave "three very clear directives," which were: "Number 1, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to; Number 2, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again; and Number 3, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice." The first directive could hardly be described as clear. It appears to serve to obfuscate the matter because he didn't tell the American people who he transmitted this directive to and when he gave it. It's not complicated and the president should be able to tell us now, without a long and drawn out investigation.

If the president is telling the truth, then a military execute order exists, since only the president, as commander-in-chief, has the constitutional authority to send military forces into a foreign country to conduct hostile military action. Within the military chain of command, the two officials that he would give this directive to are the secretary of defense and the responsible four-star combatant commander, through the chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff, and they would follow-up with a written execute order to carry out the president's directive. The president knows what he did, when he did it and who he gave his first directive to. Given his stonewalling to date, it's likely that he didn't give the first directive and as a result, the only order that the secretary of defense could give without the president's approval to execute would be a stand down order to the military.

As American citizens, we should be outraged that the Obama administration denied the request for help and not send our military forces into Benghazi, who have the capability to respond effectively and lethally within hours. President Obama's indecisiveness while Americans were fighting and dying in Benghazi is glaring evidence that he is incapable of leading and cannot be trusted to tell the truth, particularly when it might adversely impact him politically.

May God help us these next four years because as sure as night follows day, there will be more national security challenges in President Obama's second term that will have grave consequences for our nation.